It started off pretty well. Liz, Johnny and I went out and we had a few
drinks. We played a few rounds of “Lying
to Strangers in Bars,” a game invented by Liz.
The basic premise is that we’ll strike up a conversation with someone at
the bar, and then one of us will tell another “Hey, tell them about…” followed
by a vague reference to an improbable and untrue event. The third person is in charge of scoring the
resulting story, on a wide range of category, including how funny it is, how
much the stranger seems to believe it, and, as a result of a long-running joke,
how many times the story teller can work in the word scoundrel.
The winner last night was, by far, Johnny,
who worked off Liz’s prompt, “Hey, tell him about the time we stumbled on that nude
druidic ritual up in the Adirondacks.”
All in all, it should have been a good night.
Then, at the third bar, everything
suddenly seemed terrible. The drinks, the music playing, the company of my
friends- it all at once disgusted and infuriated me. That’s the kind of mood
where I could say something hurtful, but thankfully I still had enough self
awareness to recognize that. I made some excuse about needing fresh air and wandered
out into the cold.
After a
while Liz and Johnny came out to check on me. Like I said, better than I
deserve. I told them I was just feeling a little sick from the beer- no need to ruin their night with my shit. A little while, when I was feeling better, I went back inside, but I was pretty subdued the rest of the night, I guess.
No dogs tonight, at least. The
weirdest thing that happened, my own hang-ups aside, was some guy at the second
bar staring at me and lapping beer out of his pint glass with his tongue. Liz is pretty sure he was flirting with me,
which is flattering, I guess?
I Get Werewolves
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Sometimes Life’s REALLY Fucking Weird
So I talked to my neighbor. The conversation, paraphrased from memory,
went something like this.
“Hi. I think your dog got out the
other night. He was on my back porch.”
“You saw Tito? Was he okay?”
“I guess? I just saw him for a second out my window.”
“Listen, if you see him again, call
us, any time. He’s been missing for more
than a week now.”
“What? No, I’m sorry. I meant your new dog. The bigger one.”
“We don’t have another dog.” We
both gave each other Am-I-In-A-Room-With-A-Crazy-Person looks, and then I apologized
for my mistake and left. The black dog
had been in the yard when I arrived, but was nowhere to be seen when I left.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m cracking up. I’m going to go out with my friends tonight
and just try to relax and have a good time.
Sometimes Life’s Pretty Weird Too
So I
went out the back door this morning, and on a whim, I glanced at the outside of
my bedroom window. I was more than a little freaked out when I saw what looked
an awful lot like claw marks on the frame. Maybe the neighbor’s new dog got out Friday night. I’ll have to talk to them
when I get home.
On a
related subject, it seemed like there was one of the big black mastiffs (?) on
every corner on my way to class today. I noticed something else odd too. They’ve all got what looks like the same
little white patch above their left eye.
Maybe I’m not just starting to notice them now. Maybe some travelling
watchdog salesman came through town with a litter of dogs.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Bad Dreams
I woke
up- or I thought I woke up- last night to a scratching at the window. When I
glanced up, there was a large black shape at the window. I thought it was a
dog, but it was dark enough that I couldn’t really be sure. I tried to sit up, but I found that my body
wouldn’t obey me. I could do little more
than jerk my arms and legs about spasmodically.
Eventually, I worked my way out of bed and fell on the floor. I don’t
know how long I lay there, trying to bring my limbs back under my control, but
eventually I found myself sitting up in bed, tangled up in my sheets, listening
to the blare of my alarm clock.
I guess
that’s what I get for watching a documentary on sleep hypnosis right before
bed.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Sometimes the Mind’s Pretty Weird
On my
way to and from college today, I saw three or four other black dogs, of the
same sort as my neighbors’. I can’t ever
remember seeing that breed before, but now that seeing the one in the
neighbors’ yard has got me thinking about them, they seem to be everywhere.
This is
a pretty common phenomenon. The human brain is the result of millions of years
of evolution, but the point is, evolution doesn’t work according to blueprints.
Things happen, more or less at random, and the things that work a little better
stick around. There are tons of inefficiencies and idiosyncrasies in the human
mind that stick around because they aren’t serious enough, in enough of the
population, to die out.
Which
leads to the main problem. If the mind
is the tool we have for interpreting the world, and the mind itself is flawed, than
how are we supposed to figure out what’s wrong with it? And my mind is, not to
brag, perhaps slightly more flawed than most.
I have to wonder if I’m wasting my time, trying to examine a flawed
instrument with a flawed instrument.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Where Do I Go From Here?
So, I
started this blog to talk about my personal problems, but the truth is, I’m not
sure where to go next. There’s not a lot
more to say than I covered in the initial post. I don’t know where the feelings
(I like the term Beast more, but that’s probably just my machismo talking
again) come from. I had normal, loving
parents. Some things they’ve said, I get
the impression that there’s a history of mental illness farther along the
family tree, but I haven’t pressed them to explain it directly. That would start a conversation I’m not quite
ready to have.
In
semi-unrelated news, the neighbors have a new dog. A big black one, I’m not
sure of the breed, but maybe a mastiff of some sort? If I had to guess, I’d say
it was a watch dog. It definitely kept its eye on me from the moment I opened
the door, and even though it didn’t bark or show its teeth or move from its
prone position in the shade of the elm tree, you could just tell that it wasn’t
the sort of animal you wanted to screw with.
No sign
of the yapbag. Maybe the new dog ate it.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Why Wolves, Though?
Yeah, I
know, people talk about werecats and weresharks and werebuffalo and werelizards
and all whatnot, but at least in Western culture, it seems to keep coming back
to wolves. Why might that be?
I think
it’s got to do with dogs. See, it’s hard to relate to imagine going from being
a human to being a shark or a lizard. There’s just no context for it. Too wide
a gap. A shark is a shark is a near-mindless eating machine. But dogs- we live
with dogs, we love them, we treat them as part of the family. And at the same
time, we’re aware that there’s only the briefest of steps between our beloved
companions and wolves.
I’m not
much of a dog person, myself. They just
make a good metaphor. I don’t have anything against the species in general, but
there’s a little rat-dog in the yard across the street from my building who
delights in yapping his head off all night, and that’s kind of colored my
perception.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)